Rory Cashin; one of the of Dublin-based comedy filmmakers, Half A Giraffe; talks about past projects and their Film Quiz Fundraiser this Saturday.

Some people say we’ve always been here. Some other, better-informed people say we formed in December of 2009. Consisting of Ben Keenan, Gemma Creagh, Ciaran McNamee and myself, we set out to write and produce funny things for the enjoyment of others. In an attempt to completely drown you in awareness, we currently have an official website (halfagiraffe.tv), where twice-weekly we post our comedy articles, an official YouTube page (halfagiraffeable), a twitter feed (@half_a_giraffe), and TWO Facebook pages.

After several weeks of writing what felt like 1,000,000 scripts (but turned out to be, say, 7), we decided to shoot our first sketch, and Imperfect Couple came to pass. This was also the conception of a theme we didn’t realize we’d started, which was ‘NSFW!!!’ Starring Emmett Scanlan (who is currently staring as a repressed gay man in Hollyoaks… coincidence?) and stand up comedienne Sonya Kelly. With that, we threw our comedy snowball down the entertainment mountain that would eventually form a hilarious avalanche to consume us all.

The next month, we shot and released Reaction Video, starring Jeff Doyle and myself, we began to realise that no topic was beyond our reach. Government issues, climate worries, economic meltdowns, celebrity break-ups, the pro’s and con’s of Michael Bay… none of these were touched upon in Reaction Video, but I like to think it was all in the subtext about the story of two guys watching something on the internet, and one of them gets forcibly romantic.

At the end of June we shot and released It’s On Me. We had gotten giddy with power after our first two sketches had gone down so well, so we decided to go all out with this one. Outdoor shots! Actual camera moves! Editing! This sketch had it all, and more. Well… not more… but it does have all those other things I mentioned.

Then there was a big break in our shooting schedule. Well, I assume there was… I went on holidays to Las Vegas, and everything from the end of July to about Halloween is completely blanked from my memory. When I came to we were shooting Tough Love. This was to be our Ghandi, with what felt like 1,000,000 actors (but turned out to be, say, 7), this has been our most critically divisive sketch to date, with people saying stuff ranging from ‘Wow, its just as good as anything from College Humour!’ to ‘Wow, its even better than anything from College Humour!’ to ‘Jesus Christ… what is the matter with you people?’

And just last week, we shot our soon-to-be-released sketch Life’s Outtakes, which I can’t tell you much about (a trick I learned from JJ Abrams), except that it doesn’t feature any of the following: aliens, explosions, gratuitous nudity, Megan Fox, submarines, celery, Danny DeVito, volcanoes, Piña Coladas, or interpretations of heaven… oh, wait, it does have that last one.

To date, we have been incredibly lucky to work with some very, very talented cast and crew who have helped us so much in all our projects and who have been kind enough to donate their time and efforts into making our sketches. Everything we have shot has been funded by us personally – along with any spare change we happen to find on the street.

So this brings us neatly on to our Film Quiz fundraising night. It’ll be a great event hosted in Filmbase in Temple Bar (across from the Button Factory). It starts at 8pm and will cost €5 at the door; there will be a rake of prizes and raffles and perhaps time for a boogie or two. Don’t worry if you can’t stay for the whole quiz, there’ll be plenty to keep you occupied! So come along, bring your friend(s), and help us fund bigger and better Half A Giraffe projects in the future.